Honduras

The UN's World Food Program in Honduras appears to be working the way development aid should, and Canada has stepped into a lead role. What's going right? For one thing, in the decade since this Central American country was laid low by Hurricane Mitch -- a disaster that left scars that still linger -- the number of children fed through a school-feeding program has grown from 200,000 to 1.3 million. That's a big deal in a country where one child in four is chronically malnourished. [...] Food aid, [Jamie Vallaure, the WFP representative in Honduras ] points out, can be remarkably cost-efficient. WFP spent $5 billion last year, up from $3.5 billion in 2007 as a result of the steep rise in food prices, to feed 100 million of the 900 million who need help. But nearly two-thirds of this money goes to feed just one-third of recipients, those who are hit by war or famine or natural disasters and are at imminent risk of starvation.